This book addresses numerous issues related to ethnomathematics and diverse approaches to it in the context of mathematics education. To help readers better understand the development of ethnomathematics, it discusses its objectives and assumptions with regard to promoting an ethics of respect, solidarity, and cooperation across and for all cultures. In turn, the book addresses a range of aspects including pedagogical action, culturally relevant pedagogy, innovative approaches to ethnomathematics, and the role of ethnomathematics in mathematics education.
Ethnomathematics offers educators a valuable framework for transforming mathematics so that it can more actively contribute to realizing the dream of a just and humane society. As such, its primary goal is to forge mathematics into a powerful tool to help people create a society characterized by dignity for all, and in which iniquity, arrogance, violence, and bigotry have no place.

Table of contents (10 chapters)IntroductionString Figures and EthnographyA Conceptualization of String Figure-MakingW.W. Rouse Ball’s Mathematical Approach to String FiguresThomas Storer and the Concept of Heart-SequenceHeart-Sequences and “Look-Alike” String FiguresUnderstanding TransformationsCultural and Cognitive Aspects of String Figure-Making in Two Different SocietiesComparison of the Trobriander and Guarani-Ñandeva String Figure CorporaConclusion

About this book

This book addresses the mathematical rationality contained in the making of string figures. It does so by using interdisciplinary methods borrowed from anthropology, mathematics, history and philosophy of mathematics. The practice of string figure-making has long been carried out in many societies, and particularly in those of oral tradition. It consists in applying a succession of operations to a string (knotted into a loop), mostly using the fingers and sometimes the feet, the wrists or the mouth. This succession of operations is intended to generate a final figure. The book explores different modes of conceptualization of the practice of string figure-making and analyses various source material through these conceptual tools: it looks at research by mathematicians, as well as ethnographical publications, and personal fieldwork findings in the Chaco, Paraguay, and in the Trobriand Islands, Papua New Guinea, which allgive evidence of the rationality that underlies this activity. It concludes that the creation of string figures may be seen as the result of intellectual processes, involving the elaboration of algorithms, and concepts such as operation, sub-procedure, iteration, and transformation.

Table of contents
Introduction
Worldview
Education in a Post-industrial World
Mathematics Education and Culture: Learning Theories
Foundational Questions?
Language and Thought
Multimathemacy and Education. General Principles
Learning Formal Thinking in a Culture-Specific Context
Complex Mathematical Activities
Education in a School Context
General Conclusions
Appendix: Human Beings as Learners-in-Context: An “Engine” for the Capability Approach

About this book

This book defends that math education should systematically start out from the diverse out-of-school knowledge of children and develop trajectories from there to the Academic Mathematics tower of knowledge. Learning theories of the sociocultural school (Vygotsky and on) are used here, and ethnographic knowledge from around the world is shown to offer a rich and varied base for curricula. The book takes a political stand against the exclusively western focus in OECD analyses and proposals on math education.

This book aims at agents in education and social actions in every cultural environment. But it is also attractive to mathematicians, anthropologists and other specialists. It offers a broad and scholarly view of knowledge and culture and a very original transcultural and transdisciplinarian approach to education.

This document is a summary of the works published in the Cuadernos. It is an excellent synthesis of the initial and continuing preparation for Mathematics Teaching in the four countries, from which comparative analyses can be made that show similarities and differences, and highlight various perspectives. I want to express my gratitude to all the authors from the various countries that have provided these valuable materials. This edition and the formatting of this document has been my responsibility. The preparation and publication of this document constitutes a significant collective action that will strengthen the goals of the new Network for Mathematics Education in Central America and the Caribbean, and will help to strengthen the collaboration between teachers and researchers in the educational communities in our region.

Angel Ruiz Executive Director of the Capacity and Networking Project, Costa Rica 2012General Director of the Mathematics Education Network for Central America and the Caribbean Vice President of the International Commission on Mathematical Instruction President of the Inter-American Committee on Mathematics Educationruizz.angel@gmail.com

– Examines diversity in mathematics education, including methods to enhance inclusivity
– Includes multi-national perspectives on diversity and inclusivity in math education
– Delves into classroom practices, with a close look at challenges to classroom inclusivity

This book presents a research focus on diversity and inclusivity in mathematics education. The challenge of diversity, largely in terms of student profiles or contextual features, is endemic in mathematics education, and is often argued to require differentiation as a response. Typically different curricula, text materials, task structures or pedagogies are favoured responses, but huge differences in achievement still result. If we in mathematics education seek to challenge that status quo, more research must be focussed not just on diversity but also on the inclusivity, of practices in mathematics education.
The book is written by a group of experienced collaborating researchers who share this focus. It is written for researchers, research students, teachers and in-service professionals, who recognise both the challenges but also the opportunities of creating and evaluating new inclusive approaches to curriculum and pedagogy – ones that take for granted the positive values of diversity. Several chapters report new research in this direction.
The authors are part of, or have visited with, the mathematics education staff of the Faculty of Education at Monash University, in Melbourne, Australia. The chapters all focus on the ideas of development in both research and practice, recognising that the current need is for new inclusive approaches. The studies presented are set in different contexts, including Australia, China, the United States, and Singapore.

▶ The first comprehensive book on mathematical reasoning in Papua New Guinea
▶ Utilises an ecocultural perspective while focusing on current research
▶ Provides a strong focus on space, geometry and measurement

This book develops the theoretical perspective on visuospatial reasoning in ecocultural contexts, granting insights on how the language, gestures, and representations of different cultures reflect visuospatial reasoning in context.
For a number of years, two themes in the field of mathematics education have run parallel with each other with only a passing acquaintance. These two areas are the psychological perspective on visuospatial reasoning and ecocultural perspectives on mathematics education. This volume examines both areas of research and explores the intersection of these powerful ideas.
In addition, there has been a growing interest in sociocultural aspects of education and in particular that of Indigenous education in the field of mathematics education. There has not, however, been a sound analysis of how environmental and cultural contexts impact visuospatial reasoning, although it was noted as far back as the 1980s when Alan Bishop developed his duality of visual processing and interpreting visual information. This book provides this analysis and in so doing not only articulates new and worthwhile lines of research, but also uncovers and makes real a variety of useful professional approaches in teaching school mathematics.
With a renewed interest in visuospatial reasoning in the mathematics education community, this volume is extremely timely and adds significantly to current literature.